In memory of our brother and son, Robert Bagnell,
who died moments after being tasered by police in Vancouver, British Columbia on June 23, 2004. Bob was the 7th Canadian to die and the 110th in North America.

Saturday, April 11, 2009

VANCOUVER, B.C. — Police routinely call the media together for a show-and-tell display of video or pictures of the latest brazen criminal act, but lately, a similar spotlight has been shining on police and the picture isn't pretty.

A Vancouver news photographer summed it up as the "Robert Dziekanski syndrome" after police twisted his arm behind his back and seized his camera as he tried to take shots of a police-involved shooting.

Dziekanski, a Polish immigrant who was behaving erratically, died at Vancouver's airport after RCMP Tasered him several times in October 2007.

The death went mostly unnoticed until it exploded onto the national stage after a bystander's video of the incident showed officers using the weapon on the agitated man armed only with a stapler. A public inquiry which has been further embarrassing to the RCMP is currently underway.

Since Dziekanski's death, New Brunswick police have been chastised by a court for not only arresting a blog photographer, but deleting a picture from his camera.In December 2007, just weeks after the Dziekanski video was released to the public, Vancouver television cameraman Ricky Tong arrived to the scene of a police-involved shooting minutes after the gunfire and started filming.

He was held after refusing to give up his video and only released after the station sent a live truck to the site so a copy of the video could be made on the spot.After a fatal police shooting on the street last month, Adam Smolcic, told a Vancouver officer he had taped the incident on his cell phone.

He said he gave the officer his phone and when it was returned, the video had been erased. The phone is now with experts in the United States to see if the video can be extracted from the phone's memory.

Vancouver Police Chief Jim Chu has apologized to both Payne and Tong.

"My personal feeling is this is the Robert Dziekanski syndrome," said Payne, a news photographer for more than a decade.

"If that person hadn't of videotaped what happened in Vancouver airport the inquiry probably wouldn't be going on."

Payne said he was threatened with arrest. "And I really thought they were going to do it."

The Vancouver incidents have prompted a formal complaint from the B.C. Civil Liberties Association to the Vancouver Police Board.

Chu has admitted police held on to the photographer's camera an hour longer than they should have.

"The officers were acting in good faith, they were acting in the heat of the moment," he said.

This comes at the same time as the City of Vancouver considers beefing up it's surveillance during the 2010 Winter Olympics with street cameras and the B.C. government invests $1.8 million to put video systems in police cars.

It's an irony not lost on David Eby, of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

"It's almost like the police only want the cameras turned in one direction. That is on the citizens and not on the police," said Eby.

"But the reality of cellphone cameras and surveillance cameras is that they capture everybody equally."

No one, including police, should have the expectation of privacy in a public place, said Simon Fraser University criminologist Neil Boyd.

He agreed it appears recent police actions indicate they're concerned about public perception.

"Whether this is true or not is a question - but the images do suggest that they're more interested in how police are portrayed than using this material in the course of a police investigation," said Boyd.

After his apology, Chu denied that was the goal of his officers.

"If you want to go on YouTube and search Vancouver Police there's tremendous amounts of video footage and we know that. We're not out there trying to stop people from doing that at all."

The department also sent out a bulletin warning officers they can't take cameras or video equipment from members of the public or the media. It says officers can only take equipment in the instances where there is an arrest, a warrant, or officers have a reasonable concern that the person might destroy the evidence.

Eby said police often use the potential destruction of evidence as an excuse to seize the tape.

"The issue is control of the videotape and who gets to see it and more importantly who doesn't get to see it."

He said he can't think of a member of the public who would videotape a police-involved death and then erase it.

"More likely they would sell it to a media outlet or they would put it up on YouTube. The concern that the police have is that the videotape would be distributed and there would be people criticizing their conduct," he said.

Eby said it was no coincidence that the conflicts between police and media concerned police-involved shootings.

"I think the Dziekanski video really drives home the sensitivity that police have around these things."

All four officers involved in the Taser incident told the inquiry into Dziekanski's death that the man was aggressive and waving a stapler when they arrived on the scene and that the officers had to wrestle him to the airport floor.

All the officers later admitted after watching the video during the inquiry that those statements were incorrect.

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taser-Related Deaths = 1043+ in North America

See "A LIST OF THE DEAD"According to Taser International, the taser had nothing to do with any of these deaths. According to a Reuters investigation, Shock Tactics - Part 1 - The Toll, published on August 22, 2017, more than 150 autopsy reports have cited tasers as the cause or contributor to deaths across the U.S. That number may be higher; however medical examiners and coroners are often not impartial but are instead biased in favour of the Crown or, as has been shown, they are under tremendous pressure from - among others - Taser International, to make a particular finding.See Judge rules for Taser in cause-of-death decisions

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Taser International finally admits risk that their weapons may affect the human heart

RCMP - TASERS POTENTIALLY LETHAL

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My Brother - Robert Bagnell June 27, 1959 - June 23, 2004

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2) Until such time as independent and unbiased study into the "real world" safety implications of Tasers has been properly completed, a moratorium must be imposed upon these weapons.

3) If, after independent and unbiased study has been completed, the Taser is going to remain in the police arsenal, it must be placed at a level equal to lethal force on the continuum of force and used only as a second-to-last resort.

4) Safety standards must be developed for Tasers. There are currently no Canadian safety standards in place for this weapon.

5) Police must not be allowed to investigate themselves but must be subject to independent and unbiased civilian oversight.

6) Families of people who die in police custody in Canada must be provided with funding so that they may be properly represented by legal counsel.

07. Robert Bagnell, 44 – Vancouver, BC - June 23, 2004 - X26 - "Official" cause of death: Consistent with restraint-associated cardiac arrest due to acute cocaine intoxication and psychosis. Bob's autopsy report showed marks on his body consistent to multiple taser shots, which incidently could not be affirmed by the pathologist because she could not explain those marks.

09. Samuel Truscott, 43 – Kingston, ON - August 8, 2004 - X26 - "Official" cause of death: Heart attack cause by drug overdose and "I can state categorically that the Taser did not play any role whatsoever in his death" said Chief Coroner for Ontario, Jim Cairns

24. Michael Langan, 17, Winnipeg, MB - July 22, 2008 - tasered 1 time - the autopsy report says Langan's death was caused by a heart arrhythmia brought on by the Taser shocks

25. Sean Reilly, 42 - Brampton, ON - September 17, 2008 - Peel Regional Police - X26 - tasered 2 times - the inquest jury will determine the official cause of death, however, “the forensic evidence indicated that the force used by the officers, including the Taser discharge, did not contribute to his death"

27. Trevor Grimolfson, 38 - Edmonton, AB - October 29, 2008, X26 - According to sources, after he was pepper sprayed, Trevor was tasered directly on the chest 5 times and tasered on the back of the neck 2 more times - Edmonton police said he was only tasered 2 times but testing on the tasers proves otherwise - "Official" cause of death: excited delirium brought on by drugs

29. Grant William Prentice, 40 - Brooks, AB - May 6, 2009 - RCMP - tasered 2 times - "Official" cause of death: acute cocaine toxicity and "the medical examiner also concluded the taser did not play a role in the death"

Ain't it the truth!

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80% percent of the population could be moved in either direction

Human rights activist Susan Sontag, when asked what she had learned from the Holocaust, said that 10 percent of any population is cruel, no matter what, and that 10 percent is merciful, no matter what, and that the remaining 80 percent could be moved in either direction.

THE Successes AREN'T the Problem

"The issue is not whether or not the taser can be used in a high percentage of cases to reduce death and/or physical trauma to officers and civilians alike. The issue is whether or not it's OK to kill the rest through ignorance and rationalization just because it's a small percentage ... The successes aren't the problem - the failures are. They're being told that tasers are nonlethal, so they blast away until people can't move. They're killing people by accident." Dave Siegler, father of Raymond Siegler, who died on February 12, 2004

The artistic side of Robert Bagnell

WE KNOW THIS MUCH IS TRUE

ROBERT ANGLEN

Robert Anglen, a reporter with The Arizona Republic, documented the first 167 Taser-related deaths. Mr. Anglen launched a journalistic investigation of Taser International, linking the Taser to multiple deaths, among other eye-openers.

At the 2005 Arizona Press Club Awards, Mr. Anglen won first place in the Investigative reporting category. He was the recipient of the Don Bolles Award for his report entitled "Taser tied to 'independent' study that backs stun gun'. “As part of an extraordinarily thorough investigation of Taser International, Anglen uncovered ‘smoking gun’ documents that showed the manufacturer was heavily involved in the key study that purported the devices are safe. Anglen also uncovered conflicts of interest and documented wide-spread problems with Taser safety — a matter of national and international public interest.”

In 2006, Mr. Anglen was a runner up for the Arizona Press Club's Virg Hill Journalist of the Year award. Peter Bhatia of The Oregonian wrote “Robert Anglen is an investigative reporter, pure and simple. Clearly, he is a reporter who, once he sinks his teeth into something, stays with it until the story is done. His ongoing work around the company that makes Tasers speaks to that."